


When I Was Seven

by skcm



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Childhood, Dust Town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skcm/pseuds/skcm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rica and Kera Brosca play their favorite game together, but Rica's thoughts are elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Was Seven

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks, Sian, for your constant inspiration, and the beauty you bring to such a sad origin as Dust Town.

She squeals merrily at her sister, eyes so tight with the fantasy that she develops tiny and premature, but fleeting wrinkles.  Her cheeks look like apples, which are apparently very tasty (or so she’s heard from gossip spread like plagues down in Dust Town)  “Rica, I’mna be the greatest noble who ever set foot in the Diamond Quarter!  I got beautiful hair down to here,” Kera points to the exposed sole of her foot, brown from the dusty stone floor.  “An’ I eat apples all the soddin’ day long!  I sit on my arse and eat apples!”

Rica smiles and sighs a little, remembering the one sweet piece of fruit she’d eaten in her life.  Kera’s father once left half of an orange outside their water closet door one night, probably in a hurry enough going nowhere to drop the coiled peel and some of the half-eaten flesh, too.  When the coast cleared, Rica made haste to the beautiful pile of skin and squishy, juicy, absolutely mind-boggling orange bits wrapped in a scrap of burlap cloth.  It was not filthy, it was not last week’s nug, and it was something she’d dreamed of.  Even the sweetness of it made her mouth tingle and water.  The piece of sticky fruit felt good.

There were stains on her cheeks she couldn’t stop licking juice off of for days, until at last their mother dunked Rica’s face into a basin of cold, silty water.  “What is that shit on your face, girl?  You got a rash?  Tell me if it is, I don’t wanna get one too!”  Kalah pinches cheeks hard.  Kalah makes rashes even redder, even itchier.  Kalah makes you sting, and so Rica remembers instead sitting hunched near the door of the bath, smacking her lips and chirping soothing and inaudible words.


End file.
